Health48
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Healthy Climate, Healthy People
As leaders debate climate policy in Copenhagen, one essential dimension has been largely left out: human health. This is a mistake for two reasons. First, one of the most compelling reasons for aggressive action is to avoid the enormous long-term health impacts likely to be felt throughout the world if we continue to push our…
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World Pneumonia Day
Today is the first World Pneumonia Day (WPD).To demonstrate your solidarity with the millions of children who are afflicted with pneumonia every year, WPD asks that you wear blue jeans to school, work, or wherever you go on this day. WPD has organized a Global Pneumonia Summit of over 100 media representatives, scientists, political leaders,…
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Changing the Urban Relationship to Food
With an Italian background, from a culture of food, as biologist and one time theatre producer, to me it makes sense to work with a research group that has the courage to break many taboos and re-discuss academic assumptions in an open and innovative way.
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Designers at Columbia and MIT Promote “Foodshed” Concept
Contributed by Richard Plunz and Michael Conard On September 10th, Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” highlighted the work of designers at the Earth Institute’s Urban Design Lab (UDL) in his Op-Ed Contribution to the New York Times, titled “Big Food vs. Big Insurance.” Since 2007, researchers at the…
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The Earth Institute and Merck & Co., Inc./The Merck Company Foundation Collaborate To Strengthen Health Services In Rural Africa
NEW YORK, June 22 — With the financial support and collaboration of The Merck Company Foundation, the Earth Institute at Columbia University is launching an ambitious initiative to strengthen community health services for over 400,000 people in ten African countries under the Millennium Villages project. The initiative will advance the development of a professional cadre…
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Climate and Meningitis in Africa
We hear a lot about the impact of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. But if you’re keeping track, you may as well add bacterial meningitis to the list of nasty diseases that plague the continent. Bacterial meningitis is an infection of the thin lining that surrounds the brain and the spinal cord, known as…
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Health people, meet climate people!
Since Monday, 12 public-health professionals and climate scientists from ten countries have been at Columbia University’s Lamont campus to learn how to use climate information to make better decisions in health-care planning and disease prevention. They’re taking part in the second Summer Institute on Climate Information for Public Health, organized by the International Research Institute…
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Swine flu, climate change, and the future of infectious diseases
Since the first cases of swine flu, or H1N1, were reported in April, public health organizations, governments, media and the general public have spent much time and energy trying to understand and contain the virus. Responses have ranged from the serious (like the WHO’s declaration of a phase 5 pandemic alert) to the ridiculous (like…
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Arsenic in Bangladesh Water, Then and Now
Back in the summer of 1997 while working for a small newspaper focusing on UN development issues, I traveled to Bangladesh to see how far this often overlooked country tucked away in a corner between India and China had fared since its independence 25 years ago. At the time the only stories which came out…
The first Earth Day in 1970 ignited a movement to stop polluting our planet. This Earth Month, join us in our commitment to realizing a just and sustainable future for our planet. Visit our Earth Day website for ideas, resources, and inspiration.